Retrial for Guy Turcotte as Supreme Court of Canada refuses to hear case

Sue Montgomery, GAZETTE justice reporter03.20.2014

Quebec cardiologist Guy Turcotte never denied killing his children, but his lawyers successfully argued he didn’t know what he was doing when he grabbed a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed them in their beds on Feb. 21, 2009, after drinking windshield fluid in an unsuccessful attempt at suicide.

MONTREAL – Isabelle Gaston has lived through the horrific killings of her two children, an emotional trial in which their cardiologist father was found criminally not responsible, and now will relive the gruesome details all over again as Guy Turcotte is retried.

It has been a hellish five years that will likely stretch close to seven once the legal roller-coaster finally comes to a stop.

"I should be happy but at the same time, it's torture," Gaston said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I don't really want to go to the trial, but feel I have to keep an eye on things.

"If I didn't, it would be like sitting on the bench when the game is being played."

Gaston, who is an emergency ward doctor at St-Jérôme Hospital, and the public will learn the date of the new trial April 4 during a scheduling hearing in Quebec Superior Court in St-Jérôme. It is unlikely to be before next March.

Gaston said she nervously awaited Thursday's decision from the Supreme Court of Canada, which said it would not hear an appeal of a lower court decision, handed down in November, that ordered Turcotte be tried again on two counts of first-degree murder.

"I wasn't sure (what the Supreme Court would say) because from the beginning, things haven't gone as I thought they would in this case," she said.

The Supreme Court never gives its reasons for not hearing an appeal.

In a verdict that shocked the country, Turcotte was found not criminally responsible in July 2011 and released from the Philippe Pinel Institute in December 2012. The defence at the time, through the testimony of two expert witnesses, had convinced the jury that Turcotte was suffering from an adjustment disorder which was further aggravated by the fact he drank windshield wiper fluid to try to kill himself. He therefore didn't know what he was doing when he plunged a knife numerous times into his children's bodies, the defence argued.

The Crown appealed, and the Quebec Court of Appeal found the judge's instructions to the jury faulty.

"The Crown did not always help, by making its point in a sometimes confused manner," the three-judge panel wrote. "Nevertheless, the instructions were deficient on a major point and as a result likely had a significant impact on the verdict, which could have been much different."

Distraught that Gaston had left him for the couple's personal trainer, Turcotte stabbed 5-year-old Olivier 27 times and 3-year-old Anne-Sophie 19 times as they lay in their beds in February, 2009.

Since the outcome of the first trial, Gaston has been working tirelessly to rectify what she sees as a major flaw in the justice system: the defence can pay experts handsomely for what she says is sometimes questionable testimony.

She's earned the support of the Quebec Association of Psychiatrists, which recently called for rules outlining who can be considered an expert witness and a list of names drawn up by the Quebec College of Physicians from which the court can choose.

Turcotte was released from the Philippe Pinel Institute in December 2012, but has returned there since the appeal decision came down.

It is not certain whether he will retain the same high-profile lawyer, Pierre Poupart. Poupart did not return messages left by The Gazette. As is usual in retrials, another judge will take the place of Superior Court Justice Marc David, who was on the bench first time around.

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Retrial for Guy Turcotte as Supreme Court of Canada refuses to hear case

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